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Right? In essence they've won. They wanted Megaupload gone. Whether or not they actually manage to prosecute him for anything, they won as soon as they all started. Just by ignoring the rules and smashing everything up, as long as they can keep this bogged down in legal stupidity, they get to keep having their cake and eating it.

because nobody wants to have to pay for a dozen different accounts. Remember these are businesses too, not just free services, and it was a no-brainer purchasing a megaupload account, now it's pointless to buy anything because all the other sites are either subject to wild service changes, or some other small site pops up with better services and suddenly the one you have premium for because it was everywhere last month is completely barren.

That's not the problem. The "problem" is each file hosting provider is its own business. It would be like you bought an iOS dev account but everyone that wants to use your app is on Android. You will need to buy an Android dev account in order to publish your app on the Play Store.

It is to the point where I wish every other country would just tell the USA "these are you're laws you are throwing out, and we aren't standing for it anymore" and let dotcom, and anyone else in fights like this go.

Eventually the US will either have to man up and play by the rules, or come out of the closet as being the police state everyone is already seeing it for.

Just by ignoring the rules and smashing everything up, as long as they can keep this bogged down in legal stupidity, they get to keep having their cake and eating it.

The current U.S. government is more reminiscent of the early 90's mob. Seems like they took some lessons from history and applied them in the wrong (or "right" direction). If they want to do something, they just go around the law, and when people fight back, they use the same laws they skipped over to keep them down.

Dotcom knows they have nothing on him. And they know that the NZ government and legal system isn't going to make itself look stupid again.

He can set up pretty much the same service and know he's pretty much invulnerable. If he adds a few extra safeguards - redundant backups in other countries or something, he'll be back, with the publicity he gains from this.

Perhaps he won't, but it's a plausible scenario, and I can't see anyone wanting to risk this.

They won, but the aftermath is quite important too. If megaupload gets vindicated through this, it might actually give legal precedence to these kinds of filesharing sites to keep doing what they do with impunity. Right now they're all mostly running for the hills but if the FBI loses badly in the courtroom then we might see a revival.

This is what happens when you can afford the best legal council. Although I believe it's all a bunch of trumped up charges, do you think Kim would be in this position without the legal team he has acquired?

Personally, the US Government reminds me of some creepy dude who barges in on you when you're having sexytiems and starts screaming "USE A CONDOM!" and then just sits there invading your privacy until you finish, only to collect samples of sperm and run away giggling.

That about sums it up, and is probably my exact feeling towards the UK also. Our government just happens to be much more straight forward with how big of a shit they're taking all over us, while yours is rapidly turning into a surveillance state...don't get me wrong, the US is too, but not nearly at the same rate. Although ours is much more militarized.

Kim Doctom has always been kind of a douche. But the way this was handled is completely unacceptable and as well as unethical. Based on that, I am on his side and glad he is making a stink about it. I really wonder how its is all going to play out.

The government doesn't CARE if it loses. The more outlandish their claims in court the better. They don't want these cases GOING to a trial; if they go to trial, the government might lose. If they refuse to turn over evidence; then the cases get tossed and nobody can do discovery to get the government's internal documents about the raids.

Your government has figured out if they seize shit and ask questions later, by the time it eventually winds its way through the courts years later, the Dotcom's of the world will be destroyed. That's all they care about. They have immunity from lawsuits for their official actions and they know it. They can act illegally; doesn't matter. They have total and complete immunity from prosecution.

They don't care about convictions.

It's a mafia running our country. They know these arrests are illegal and immoral. They don't fucking care.

Just like they don't care that 400 Mexicans and a US Border Patrol agent were killed with their Fast & Furious guns. They don't fucking care. Congress can issue all the subpoena's they want. This government doesn't care. Congress can issue contempt citations all fucking day. Not like anybody is getting prosecuted or going to jail. Who cares? It's a fucking free-for-all. All the cops are on the fucking take.

It's very hard to obtain a balanced perspective of this issue when so much of what is publicized about it comes from a blog. Could someone explain to me the rationale behind the FBI's withholding of evidence?

Because the proceedings that are going on now are not a trial. When you are on trial, and when you are preparing for trial, you are entitled to see the evidence against you. But right now they are still determining if there is even going to be a trial. So they're not at the point right now of presenting the evidence.

If it's just a procedural hearing to determine where your trial is going to be, you don't get to interrupt it by demanding the government present their entire case right now. Asking for it now is basically a stalling tactic and a PR stunt; it has nothing to do with what the current hearings are talking about.

That's a gross oversimplification. This isn't about deciding whether he'll be tried in New Zealand or the U.S. The NZ court is attempting to decide if the U.S. even has a case worth calling for extradition, and the Feds are refusing to provide any evidence that they do.

There is one series of court hearings going on around the search warrants for his house -- and it's not that the warrants were illegal, it's that they weren't specific enough for this kind of international operation. One judge issued a preliminary finding that she thought that this might pose a problem for the legality of the seizures, but she didn't rule them unlawful, the seizure of his property hasn't officially been ruled unlawful, and it's not clear what will happen in the future. What is certain is that there will be more hearings.

There is another series of court hearings going on about whether the indictment is sufficient to extradite Dotcom from New Zealand to the U.S.

And then there will be another series of court hearings around his actual trial.

All these hearings do different things, and a point that is relevant for one (like the hearing on warrants) might not be relevant to a hearing on the other (like the hearing on extradition).

This is what due process looks like; it's boring and counterintuitive and takes a long time.

I am seriously more and more shocked by this story. In France we don't talk enough about that, but what about inside the US ? Did the story make some noise ? Is it still ? I can't believe this is really happening, US forces organizing an operation in NZ to defend big US media companies, then trying to convince everyone that they know what they're doing and everyone should let them do. I mean come on, I know the US have a big lead in military tech, and I know it is also the leader in term of media production, but how can this quietly happen in the country of freedom ? This story seems wrong at so many levels, is it only because it's an internet stuff that most of the people don't react ?

I don't watch T.V. or read the newspapers here in the U.S. because they're all so fucked up. I don't give a shit about that guy that was on Top Gun and Mission Impossible getting a divorce or his whacked out religion/cult. It doesn't fucking change my life, but CNN/FOX/MSNBC/ABC still beg to differ. "LIBOR bullshitting everyone? Pshh ... who doesn't these days? But that guy is getting a divorce?!? omg omg omg omg. Stay Tuned!!! More at Eleven!!!"

I really hope it is because you only get news trough reddit ;/
We had several articles on google news and very likely on physical newspapers. But you guys are supposed to be crazy about court stuff, hollywood AND medias. So I hope it is because it is about internet and most people above 40 don't get, being used to the stupid WOULD YOU DOWNLOAD A CAR ???!!!.

Open source manufacturing is going to turn that stupid question into a reality. It is still in the hobbyist tinkering stage, like personal computers were in the 1970's, but eventually it will go mainstream.

So-called "3D printers" are the first devices moving from hobbyist to consumer items. Those mostly use plastic extrusion to create 3D objects. Not everything is made of plastic, however, so a complete kit requires multiple "printing heads", some of which are not additive printing at all, but rather milling heads like machine tools use, and plasma torches for cutting. Once you have a machine with multiple heads, then you can create a wide variety of objects in one machine.

Without actually looking things up, I can't think of 1 news agency on national cable or broadcast television news station that does just news. All of them that I can think of have a hand in something else (or their parent company does at least).

Actually I don't understand people defending megaupload in this at all. They're a company who based a lot of their servers in the US, and internal documents were released describing a rewards system for people who uploaded illegal content. Megaupload knowingly profited from pirated material, and broke the laws of several countries they were operating in

Am I the only one here who thinks that this case presents an interesting legal issue? Namely, what is the due process at an extradition proceeding? What is burden of proof?

I think our discussion should start and end there. I think the due process at an extradition proceeding is reasonably less than that at trial, as the worst consequences of an extradition proceeding are a criminal trial, not punishment. So I think the State need only prove probable cause here. Once again, I'm not sure that a defendant at an extradition proceeding is entitled to the same discovery rights as he is at trial - because, once again, it isn't a trial. I think the State need only provide enough evidence to establish probable cause. So either there is enough probable cause or there isn't - I don't think it makes sense to establish that the State need provide a certain amount of evidence, no more than the State need provide a certain amount of evidence at a criminal indictment, which I think is a fair analogy to an extradition proceeding. The only question here is whether there is enough evidence to justify a trial. The point is not to give the defendant a full trial at the extradition proceeding - that's just silly.

Accordingly, I think this is moreso an issue of international relations than one of law. The primary concern here I think is whether he will receive a fair trial in the United States, and I think that most people here seem to think not. Okay. But that has nothing to do with extradition law - that is another issue altogether.

No, but in general it's a nonsensical way to behave. Extradition, I mean. If a law is broken by you, while you are are IN that country, you are bound by their laws and legal system and consequences. If you escape to another country, they have every right to extradite you back to face charges.

What they don't have a right to do is accuse you of crimes against the US (or Hollywood) or whoever, when you never set foot in the US, never escaped US justice, and have abided by the systems in place (DMCA etc) to avoid running foul and screwing up your "safe harbor" status.

If anyone could explain to me how Megaupload is ANY DIFFERENT from, say Google Images, then I'd like to hear it. Both store copies of potentially copyrighted data on their servers, and must remove them after receiving a DMCA notice. In the mean time, users can freely download that data at any time, even if it IS copyrighted.

The burden of proof needs to be established BEFORE the FBI start invading foreign countries, siezing assets, blocking financial accounts and then refusing to even admit to WHAT they found. It would also be nice if they could actually quote the law in question BEFORE they invade, instead of making it up as they go along.

Does this mean that Backwaterstan can now extradite the entire female population of the world because they broke one of their laws about remaining covered in public ?

Does this mean that the US can extradite the entire 16 and 17 year old population of UK for underage sex, simply because the age of consent is 18 in the US ?

This is the extradition process being corrupted far from it's original purpose, so the US can prove a point about how big their dick is.

What they don't have a right to do is accuse you of crimes against the US (or Hollywood) or whoever, when you never set foot in the US, never escaped US justice, and have abided by the systems in place (DMCA etc) to avoid running foul and screwing up your "safe harbor" status.

This is just nonsensical. 1) He has no safe harbor protection; the indictment in the US very clearly pierces this (he and others had knowledge and did not take action, they directly infringed themselves, and the mechanism they used to make unavailable did not actually make the file unavailable, meaning they weren't even in compliance).

2) He had servers in the US, relationships with banks and users in the US, wired money in and out of the US, used a .com TLD which is subject to US jurisdiction. He did all sorts of stuff in the US via remote action. Just because you're using a long stick to reach across the border, doesn't mean you are absolved from your actions; ie drug dealers and other criminals tried for their actions which have results in the US. Was Osama Bin Laden ever in the US? No, but if he hadn't been killed we certainly we would have had jurisdiction to charge him. He broke US criminal copyright laws in the US. Questioning jurisdiction is like shouting at the moon.

If anyone could explain to me how Megaupload is ANY DIFFERENT from, say Google Images

Megaupload removed and deauthorized links to the files, not the file itself. Google Images, YouTube, etc... actually delete the file in order to be in DMCA compliance. One satisfies the clause of making the copyrighted work unavailable, the other does not.

Additionally, they showed in the indictment that members of the conspiracy were aware of the infringing nature of much of the content yet did nothing (further piercing dmca) and directly infringed themselves.

You do not understand the differences because you have not read the indictment and do not understand the case that is being argued (not the case most people just bandy about on message boards).

The burden of proof needs to be established BEFORE the FBI start invading foreign countries, siezing assets, blocking financial accounts and then refusing to even admit to WHAT they found

Freezing assets, seizing the servers, etc... was all done with due process of law in the US and following requested protocol elsewhere. The burden in the US for the servers and all financial accounts was a grand jury indictment, which the DoJ received and authorized them to take the next steps. The only argued action is the seizing of the personal assets of Dotcom and the search of his house in NZ because of mistakes made by NZ Law Enforcement.

Furthermore, the US is not refusing to admit what they found; they are refusing to provide it to Dotcom's defense team who is not entitled to see it until he has been extradited to the US and is standing trial. If the NZ Court requires substantiation that is a different issue than what is being considered in the linked to article; what is being considered is whether his defense team gets access, which is a peculiar request.

Does this mean that Backwaterstan can now extradite the entire female population of the world because they broke one of their laws about remaining covered in public ?

That is not how extradition treaties work. There is some nuance to this situation and I am not an expert on NZ's money laundering and other laws. One big controlling issue, is that Dotcom did perform these actions in the US, despite being physically in New Zealand. For example, an American was arrested when he went to Thailand for insulting the Thai king on a blog. An extradition request would have gone unheeded because of 1st Amendment protections, but NZ does have money laundering and racketeering laws, and it shouldn't be difficult to form an argument good enough for an indictment— which is again different than satisfying a judge that he committed a criminal act under NZ law. We'll see what happens.

This is not the extradition process being corrupted, this due process working its course.

Kim Dotcom is very likely a criminal. His MegaUpload operation was insanely brazen, and on its face ridiculous and illegal. That you and others get so worked up about defending this guy is ridiculous.

There are true champions of IP reform, but he is not one of them. He's a greedy fuck who deprived others of their right to exclusive distribution, and he's going to go to jail.

Well said — what's interesting to me is the difference in interpretation of NZ vs US law.

IE, I think that an NZ judge might believe the entire conspiracy to not be criminal, because of how their money laundering and racketeering laws are worded and shaped, that Kims actions are subject to civil jurisdiction because his underlying copyright infringement action was not civil.

But the US' money laundering laws don't seem to require a separate criminal conviction, just substantiated demonstration of having committed a SUA (specified unlawful activity).

So it gets more complicated, because the NZ Judge may believe that the criminality of the underlying offense would be necessary, whereas in the US it is unnecessary.

What is proper precedent in such a case? The wording of the extradition treaty appears to claim they need to provide evidence sufficient for an indictment in the place where the person is being extradited from, but NZ Anti-Money Laundering Law has only been in effect about a year. Building a case in the US for money laundering is likely very different than building one in NZ, so what exactly is the threshold of evidence required to satisfy an NZ Court. Regardless, as you said, even if the Court gets to see more, Dotcom certainly doesn't have the right to defend unless NZ indictments are not ex-parte like in the US.

There are more and more details to this case, and it seems to be getting increasingly complicated. I say just honor the request; he's not a citizen, he'll get a fair trial, and he was incredibly brazen about what he did.

There seems to be a misconception about what is going on, and the legal position is not what it is being made out to be. Generally speaking (because I have not looked at this individual case) the US position is that a full set of documents are irrelevant to the current matter before the NZ court, which is whether he is eligible for extradition. That procedure is regulated by international treaty and they only need to show that they have "sufficient evidence" to bring charges for an extraditable offense. There is no obligation on the country seeking extradition to show their entire case They only need to establish that they have some evidence of the charges against him, and that could conceivably be demonstrated by a single document. What constitutes an extraditable offense is dictated by the treaty between the US and NZ, which can be found here.

Once he is brought to the US and formally charged he will have full access to the entire set of evidence, whether they intend to use all of it or not. All of the protections that a citizen of the US has, will be afforded him including the right to a jury trial, and the right to all of the evidence against him including any evidence the US has that may demonstrate his innocence.

Jurisdictionally, this is open and shut. In cases of extradition it is simply not relevant what the evidence against Dotcom is, only that there is a valid indictment for a crime and that some other minor provisions apply (such as that he won't be executed and that he will receive a fair trial; both of which apply here).

For a New Zealand judge to become finder of fact in this case would be a gross overstep of its jurisdiction.

I would love to see precedent which contradicts this— but if you recall, Assange has faced similar issues and lost.

While evidence obtained during the raid might be inadmissible in either an extradition hearing or a US criminal case, the US had enough evidence to indict in the US prior to the raid so all the NZ court should need is that indictment in order to extradite; there is no need for the DoJ/FBI to use the evidence from his home.

US courts have a history of excluding improperly obtained evidence (see the trial of terrorists where intel was obtained through questionable means) so I'm not sure there's any risk here of a tainted trial in the US.

US courts have a history of excluding improperly obtained evidence (see the trial of terrorists where intel was obtained through questionable means) so I'm not sure there's any risk here of a tainted trial in the US.

And while everyone else shouts about how American courts are unjust, I'd like to point out America is the only nation that tosses out improperly gained evidence.

Not so open n shut. The 'crimes' he is accused of are mainly civil and do not have sentences of length enough that qualify them for extradition (in NZ). I think only the 'laundering money' aspect is severe enough (and that depends on the USA proving that running a storage service is a crime). The judge in the case has already pointed out the prosecution seems to be conflating civil with criminal law. And the warrant for search n seizure didn't even specify the crimes they were accused of , or what specific evidence they were looking for. It was basically just a very high impact fishing expedition for the NZ equivalent of a 75 person SWAT team. (directed by FBI agents) - they seized everything including the house.

Actually, the racketeering, money laundering, etc... are all extraditable under the US-NZ extradition treaty— it is only criminal copyright infringement which does not exist in NZ.

The US intentionally built their case around the fact that they need to charge him with crimes they could extradite him for and all they need is one extraditable offense, which they believe they have. The list of other charges is irrelevant to the case of extradition, and just happens to be other stuff he will be facing.

Now, you are conflating the serving of the extradition arrest warrant with the warrant to search his house.

I'm not attempting to substantiate the search warrant. The US knew it would not be upheld which is why they copied the data and left.

However, the use of a 75 person swat team was an appropriate element likely required by the US in order to not send our own people after him.

He was a definite flight risk, had multiple passports, possessed weapons, had bodyguards, and had a panic room. If he had reached Germany he would not be extraditable. There were other haven nations nearby as well (I think it was the Phillipines but I'm not sure).

If a couple of NZ Officers showed up, you don't think a man of Dotcoms resources could not have hid in the panic room until a helicopter showed up?

Who is to say his bodyguards would not have put up resistance if the level of force was not so overwhelming as to defy belief?

Also, you make statements like "The US proving that running a storage service is a crime" — and that's actually not true, and you'd know that if you'd read the indictment.

Their argument rests on him being a member of a conspiracy and that members of that conspiracy directly committed copyright infringement themselves, and induced others to do so.

It really has nothing to do with the running of the storage service except that that happened to be their particular method of executing this conspiracy.

Prosecutors in the US rarely have to win cases. They exaggerate the charges on people who can't afford a lengthy trial to scare them into a plea deal. Prosecutor gets their stats, the state saves money, police work usually escapes critical analysis, and the alleged criminal ends up receiving the same punishment they likely would have if found guilty at trial.

Not quite. They've escalated the punishments to such a level that being convicted at trial results in such astronomical sentences nobody can risk it. So they take a deal that results in the same punishment they would have received 30 years ago for a conviction.

The system as you outline wouldn't work because nobody would take deals if they were the same as a conviction - they would simply roll the dice on beating the case instead. Read Harry Stuntz's excellent book on the topic.

I had a professor who was a probation officer... he said he saw so many people come through his office that hadn't actually done anything. These were mostly public defender cases...

Two things:

Your public defender knows the guy prosecuting you. You could already be part of a pawn trading scheme for stats. "Give me the win in this case, and I'll drop the charges on your next one, etc."

You're going to see charges ranging from murder to expectorating in public (look it up, I've heard of it being used by a cop in the family). Admit to expectorating, and they'll drop murder... regardless of if they think you did it. It's about what's easy to convict, and what keeps their system alive.

I wonder if their intention was just to bring the site down, regardless of whether it was legal or not. It may backfire if Megaupload comes back though, with all of the publicity it's gained in its downtime.

This case and the way the average Redditor misconstrues it makes me sure I'm surrounded by a bunch of naive, 15 year old kids.

None of you have read the indictment. None of you know what a treaty is. None of you know what an extradition hearing is. None of you seem to understand the difference between a trial and a hearing. The OP's headline is misleading, it's not the FBI, it's the NZ gov. I could go on and on and on, but I'll just get down-voted while some post that calls the FBI a bunch of crooked faggots gets up-voted.

Ugh, this is going to sound tired and general, but isn't this exactly what nazis, totalitarian regimes, and despots did/do... It's really just a yes or no thing, you either act this way or you don't, no matter what the justification.

People around the world are starting to get genuinly scared of the US. It's not a big thing apparently on reddit because it doesn't apply to you americans yourself, but the US has voted laws that allow them to detain foreigners indefinitely, without trials.

No. This is not what they do at all. There are not evidentiary hearings in extradition cases. The only question of fact in an extradition case is whether or not there is a case in the jurisdiction requesting extradition. What the evidence in that case is is immaterial as long as that court can be relied upon to render some form of just verdict, and to presume that US courts are invalid finders of fact would be a slap to the US that highly doubt any judge in NZ is willing to risk.

No, that is not true. Please submit examples where Nazis requested extradition of foreign nationals without supplying full evidence of the alleged crime. While you may be infuriated by the perceived injustice, this is orders of magnitude different than the heinous crimes committed by the Nazi regime, or more modern equivalents.

When the FBI makes a high profile raid, they typically trot out the seized evidence in a big dog-and-pony show. They present tables stacked high with bundles of heroin or bails of marijuana. They present stacks of seized 'scary looking' guns, even throwing in a few rusty revolvers that look like they've been at the bottom of a lake for years.

They stand there mugging for reporters, flourishing and beaming with pride as they pose alongside the mountainous piles of evidence - cameras flashing, reporters yelling out questions. Mugging like peacocks brandishing their plumes in a mating ritual.

Suddenly this time they don't want anyone to know anything about any of the "evidence". They don't even want the defendant to know about it. What gives?

The statement is true, just worded poorly. At this point, since the actual trial is not in New Zealand, he's currently on trial to be extradited, he doesn't need to see the evidence in the case yet. I'm pretty sure that's what the FBI meant.